Ableton Forum

at first like many on this board i was VERY dissapointed to find the new versions of live (4.01/4.04) VERY unreliable.
i tried many different ways to arrange my set using a few resources as i could think of
tried using less tracks
tried a full arrangement with nothing in session view ( one hours set!!! phew!)
tried rendering all the clips into mono and loading only longer pieces into ram
then only loading shorter pieces into ram
then nothing into ram at all.
tried less audio outputs , tried both my motu and my internal s/card
performance got better only when the computer was given plenty of time after booting up ableton ( for the set to load)
and if i left in play mode before i returned to actually play my set it seemed better too
but still really the audio glitches were there , there was no getting around it.
but then i had the brilliant idea of actually running my set on the studio mac ( g4 1.4.ghz 2gb ram) and it ran perfectly!!!!!!!
so now i've just done 2 things
bought some more ram ( originally i had 512 total , now have 1 gb using 2x512 chips bought from crucial technology)
and turned off all au instrument plug ins
( i wish i'd done this before )
anyway , no glitches / audio drops !!!!!!!!!!!! hurray , i'm glad i persevered
so anyway i've only tried it out of the stereo outputs so far
i'll plug it into my motu 828 and see what happens then and let you know.

sniffio ....i tried your method , which took a very long time and to be honest didn't do anything much , although i would recommend disabling everything in system prefs that you don't use ( internet , bluetooth etc ) while you make music.
and possibly reinstalling the os or defragging because its always good to look after your hd. also i tried applejack which made no difference either.

so my advice is / turn off au/vst instruments , remove them from the plug ins folder and replace them one by one to determine if any of them affect performance

and buy some ram...... it's not cheap but what is these days?

dtd

mac powerbook g4 1.5 ghz , 1gb ram 80 g hd 15" screen / motu 828 mk1 audio card / os x 10.3.6 / midiman 2x2 midi interface

hi dave, i of course had all the same problems on my pb 1.5gz...i have 2gb ram in mine, i dont use vst instruments, only 3 ableton fx in total, some midi, some audio...and my problems had totally dissaperared, even using 8 channels with fx and for 90 minutes........until.......

i updated my osx to 3.7....

what os are you on??

vince watson wrote:hi dave, i of course had all the same problems on my pb 1.5gz...i have 2gb ram in mine, i dont use vst instruments, only 3 ableton fx in total, some midi, some audio...and my problems had totally dissaperared, even using 8 channels with fx and for 90 minutes........until.......

i updated my osx to 3.7....

what os are you on??

os 10.3.6
i did however just update to os 10.3.7 and you know what
i haven't tested it
i'll go and get on that now


see ya

testing it now
and it all seems fine
it's pretty black and white with this program i think
if the drop outs happen at all they'll start happening straight away , especially if you've just opened your set.
i'm very surprised your powerbook is struggling , with all that ram.
have you tried turning all the au and vst folders in the preferences anyway
it'll still be scanning them if you don't.

p.s. are you the same vince watson , who made an orange 10" on primate a few years ago???
if you are i have to say it was one of my favourites , very warm sublte stuff , i'm sure you may have made more recently but i've missed out on them

respect
d

i am indeed one of the same....

now i record on many labels...transmat.fcom, my own label bio amongst others.....

yeah, your not the only one suprised about my laptop struggling with 2gb ram...

id love to agree with you about the black and white bit though dave.....

for instance, on nye i was playing live in utrecht. 40 min into the set everything was wicked...not a glitch in sight...then...-----....dropouts and glitches.....only happened once...but it still fucks you off and makes you look stupid.

i also tried sniffio's lengthy idea's and did get better performance, but it didnt solve the problem.

i think ableton really are struggling to find the source of this...otherwise they would have released 4.0.5 by now......until then...i may go back to 10.3.5 and live 4.0.1..

I'm not sure if they are just audio drop outs, but after opening a number of sets and just generally running the program for an hour or so, Live seems to pause for a split second every so often. That sucks when a DJ is trying to match to you.

I think I'll try shutting down the program and restarting it every few mixes and see if that helps.

the_planet wrote:I'm not sure if they are just audio drop outs, but after opening a number of sets and just generally running the program for an hour or so, Live seems to pause for a split second every so often. That sucks when a DJ is trying to match to you.

I think I'll try shutting down the program and restarting it every few mixes and see if that helps.

yes you're right
it;'s a pause isn't it? not a drop out.
it actually loses the beat , but as i said before my problems now seem to be solved

mm....mines doesnt lose timing at all.....mine's are definatly dropouts. no question.....

amazing though the program is, its by no means perfect, and the vast array of new features in L4 doesnt really hide the fact its full of gremlins and needs to be ironed out.
I would have thought that by 4.0.4 it would have been solved...but..i guess we just have to wait...

one things for sure dave, i can almost guarentee you that you will be on here down the line somewhere asking whats going wrong in your liveset...thats for sure...hopefully not

vince watson wrote:mm....mines doesnt lose timing at all.....mine's are definatly dropouts. no question.....

aha!
now we are getting somewhere
we have different problems.
mine was a memory issue , but yours sounds like either a hard disk or soundcard incompatability issue.
you know a lot of people have been moaning about the m audio soundcards here?
also? do you play your audio direct from your external firewire drive?
or do you play the set from the laptops internal drive?
i've always found external drives to be flakey no matter what anyone says.
they're alright for storage but nothing else.
try this ( unless of course you already have )
save your set as self contained on the laptops desktop
and play back through your built in soundcard
see if that helps
then introduce your m audio and reassign your outputs and download the latest drivers
and take it from there.

i know it's obvious but i just thought i'd try to help.

Hello guys

reading your posts..

right now I have running:

5 audio tracks
1 simpler
1 impulse
4 vst inst
2 fx

all together..running fine..using internal hard drive / motu 828mk1..

no problem at all..cpu peak at 60%...but add another vst it's impossible

this on alu pbook. 1.33ghz 1gb ram

Im about to get a external HD fw 800 - 7200rpm..just for run the audio from there.. the pbook HD is a 4200rpm..do u think is a waste of time?? I already have another HD for storage, a slow one .(usb 2.0)

maybe upgrade the pbook to 2GB instead of buy the fw800 HD?..

personaly i would only use firewire hd's for storage
but try talikng direct to ableton support they may be able to help.

mmm...external HD's are dodgy for live...even at high speeds.

Regarding the 60% vpu reading zyk, are you talking about the ableton live cpu reader?? if so then i would forget that figure...its nowhere near acurate.....you have to read the cpu from the activity monitor...maybe you have already
My cpu on ableton never goes above 25% and i still get problems....

Dave, my set does seem a lot better without the m-audio card...playing thru coreaudio on my headphones i didnt get any problems......but i remember doing this before and just when i thought it was fixed, i got a dropout. I may try a different card as i did notice m-audio being mentioned a little too often...along with mutu....

any other suggestions for a card for the 17" pb 1.5ghz?

tried rendering all the clips into mono and loading only longer pieces into ram
then only loading shorter pieces into ram
then nothing into ram at all.

Dave, do you think i should move my audio to the RAM?
i also have 2gb here

vince for ur system the best could be rme or motu

in my humble opinion of course

zyk, tried the mutu...but not the rme....will look into that...thank you veryu much